


Grace and Blood

by TheMermaidLord



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Greek Myths, I'm so sorry, Short, Supernatural - Freeform, aaaannnngssst, essentially no relationships, i suppose it could be taken as Gabriel/Raphael, if you're into that, pretentious as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 19:16:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4533948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMermaidLord/pseuds/TheMermaidLord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raphael and Gabriel were close once.</p>
<p>Maybe they still are. Maybe they still could have been.</p>
<p>And it hurts.</p>
<p>Two archangels reacting to each other's deaths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grace and Blood

**Author's Note:**

> My first work, so don't expect much.
> 
> If you could criticise as much as possible, that would be nice. Not that I'm expecting comments, but I can hope.

Raphael sensed her brother's death, even when she presumed it to have already happened.

She was sitting in a politician's heaven, everything neat, and ordered, and the smallest bit boring. Wooden panels, tasteful paintings, a single decanter of whiskey that none of them had any need for. Perfect.

She was listening to Hester's report on how the humans were reacting to the traumas the apocalypse was causing. It was boring, of course but long ago she had mastered the art of keeping her grace impartial, blank, certainly showing no traces of boredom. Or anything else, for that matter.

_It had stayed blank when garissons of wounded angels had been dragged to her, screaming as she performed the procedures that would save their lives._

_Gabriel had made some joke about her bedside manner._

_It had stayed blank when he had proceeded to try and prank Lucifer, and she'd been the only one let in on the plan because she wouldn't let it show one jot._

_Gabriel, missing a few chunks of feather, had whined for a few hours about how she was getting a bit too good at that and if she'd just hinted at Lucifer that she was guilty too, Gabriel might still be able to fly properly._

_It had stayed blank the first time some of her Commanded had messed up for the first time, a little bundle of black feathers and innocence called Castiel, and his infinitely more troublesome quick-winged partner Balthazar, disrupting half the flight patterns of heaven._

_Of course it had, and Gabriel laughed at her every time she tried to deny that she'd showed Castiel just a peek of amusement to let him know that it was alright._

_It stayed blank when her Father had commanded Lucifer to be cast from heaven, and she had stood there showing nothing as Michael did the deed, with a crack running down the deepest centre of her heart._

_Gabriel hadn't been there after that._

And now Raphael sat here, just another day in a long, long sequence spanning decades.

Until it wasn't.

She felt her brother's death, in ways that she couldn't describe, ways that she had forgotten. She felt an archangel blade sink into her stomach, saw Lucifer's expression of guarded sadness, sensed grace, not her own but so close it might as well have been, split apart and push against itself and dissipate into creation. She realised she had been a fool to give up on her brother, to ever, ever stop searching, but it was too late, too late now.

And Raphael was truly alone.

She allowed her head to drop down onto her chest, a single drop of despair to slip onto her grace, indecipherable and indecipherablely sad, and grieved.

"Commander?"

Raphael took this feeling, took all feeling and buried it deep inside her, so deep but never forgotten. Didn't think about wings burning golden as the sun, or feeling home, or adventure.

"I am fine, Hester. Continue."

 

Gabriel was well rehearsed in the art of staying out of things.

Last time he had gotten involved he had died, and the archangel-gone-trickster had no intention of repeating past mistakes. It certainly didn't matter to him that new breeds of monsters were sweeping the earth, or that Naomi was weaving her poisoned fingers around heaven yet again, or that two of his favourite siblings were at each other's throats, neither with any idea he was alive.

It didn't bother him that his big brothers were locked in the darkest part of hell, one suffering more than anyone could imagine and one twisted beyond recognition.

It was none of his concern that the Winchesters still fought their losing battle and, slowly, with lies and good intentions, cut the bonds that were formed so tightly between them.

He didn't care.

To prove to himself  _just_ how much he didn't care, Gabriel had said yes to Poseidon's offering of a party. Olympus was known for it's celebrations, for Dionysus' wine and Apollo's music and Aphrodite's beauty and promise of a  _little_ more.

So he had turned up, his pagan cover still miraculously intact, mourned those who were the prey of hunters (Hestia, Zeus, Prometheus, Demeter, Pan), and got down to the business of feasting.

_Not,_  he reminded himself for the thousandth time,  _drowning his sorrows,_ simply  _feasting._

And then, of course it happened.

Gabriel felt a sensation, curiously unlike pain, as if his grace was simply dissipating. Flowing into the wind, free and terrifying. But his grace was _here_ , it was _right here_ , it was fine, hidden but-

_No._

_No please, Castiel, no._

_No._

Raphael was dead _._

His sister. Dead. Gone.

It couldn't be, and yet it was.

The impossible truth.

The void inside him.

_'I didn't even say goodbye.'_

It grew.

_'It should've been me.'_

And grew.

' _Castiel_.'

Something inside Gabriel shifted, and he straightened up, ready to fly.

Almost.

Why was he even bothering? He couldn't kill a brother. He didn't even have the nerve to try.

Images of Raphael came, unbidden, flashing before his eyes.

_Her expression of awe, standing before their father._

_The laughter in her eyes when he had done something she wasn't allowed to approve of._

_The terror in her grace right before she wiped it clean, approaching her patient._

_The way they flew together, him slotting into an indent in her twenty-second wing._

_Her heart cracking in two, as Lucifer fell. The last time he saw her. The last time he would ever see her._

His grace hardened with resolve, and then:

_A tiny fledgeling, cradled in his arms. Wings like oil on water flapping frantically. Huge, blue, eyes._

His grace seemed to crumble a little, and he slumped.

Useless.

Gabriel's head fell forward onto his chest, and he mourned.

"Loki?"

Janus paused a story, something about his own magnificence.

Gabriel took the sadness and buried it deep. Didn't think about grey wings, like storm clouds, and freedom and belonging.

"I'm fine. Continue?"

 

 


End file.
